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- Apr 24, 2026Kahan’s music is a smart synthesis of Bon Iver’s ethereal falsetto indie-folk, Zach Bryan‘s everyman storytelling, Mumford & Sons’ acoustic stomp, and a Taylor Swiftian eye for lyrical detail, not to mention well-constructed bridges — all carefully weaved, well-wrought, and rendered with a tasteful light touch and a real pop sensibility.
- Apr 24, 2026With his last album, ‘Stick Season’, Noah Kahan confirmed the reign of folk-pop in the current age, and with ‘The Great Divide’, he further proves that he’s not just a one-hit wonder.
- Apr 24, 2026The sprawling album takes as its central premise a topic that has led many a singer-songwriter down a path of unrelatable self-indulgence — grappling with sudden fame — but Kahan is unsparing enough to make it work.
- Apr 28, 2026Knowing that Kahan is capable of a song like “August” just makes the more pro forma arrangements on the rest of the album more frustrating.
- Apr 27, 2026The Great Divide doesn’t shy away from portraying Kahan as a product and commodifying the vulnerability that’s at the heart of the confessional folk he seeks to make.
- Apr 24, 2026He’s got a good eye for detail, avoiding the blustery generalities to which his peers are sometimes prone. The issue with The Great Divide is that there’s an awful lot of what he does here: 17 tracks, its length suggestive not of the desire to make a grand statement, but uncertainty about where to edit.
- Apr 24, 2026Taken individually, most of the songs are classic, solid Kahan fare; they might not surpass Stick Season, exactly, but they’re cut from the same cloth. But when you look at the record in full, it starts to feel as if it never really coalesces—or, perhaps, it coalesces too much.
